Background: introverted, straight 37M, just moved to a new city. I get along better with women than men. To stereotype, I feel like I have interesting conversations with women while men generally talk sports (don’t watch). I’m trying to figure out good ways to meet people. Multiple people (besides family members) tell me that I’m friendly and kind, so I feel like if I can figure out where to meet people, I should be okay with the rest.
Hobbies: MMA (heavily skewed towards men and takes months to break into a social circle, as most people drop out quickly), museums, and reading pretentious literature, history, philosophy, and religion. I found a philosophy book club on meetup that I like, but generally dislike book clubs because you have to read something you might not want to. Also, animals and pets are wonderful, though I don’t think my pet counts as a hobby. (Don’t tell her that.)
Work: not a good place to meet people. I work in a supervisory position with two peers and a lot of younger techs. Fine as work friends, but nothing more.
Online: Definitely worth pursuing, but I prefer to meet people in person. I’ve had too many online dates where things seemed promising, but we just didn’t hit it off once in person. I thought about the friend function on Bumble, but it only does same sex friends. Are there other apps for making friends? Is it sad that I ask that?
Approaching people: For personal reasons, I really dislike bars and venues that are focused on alcohol. At coffee shops, it seems like people are really involved in their own little world and don’t want to be bothered. At museums, I can start chitchat about something, but don’t know how to make any sort of connection. Is this a conversational skill I can work on?
To sum up: it seems I need to find a new hobby (difficult because I don’t want to spend less time on the hobbies I already have) or figure out where people I’m interested in meeting hang out, so I can go and meet them. The problem is that if they’re like me, they’re curled up on the sofa with a pet and a good book. What can I do to meet people?
1 comment
All i can say is you’re not alone. I’m 38M in Australia and have the same issue. Apart from Online that’s been a bit of a circus it’s hard to meet women.
I’ve started at F45 which is a little social but not really met anyone like that. Most of the time we work out and go home. I’ve had housemates that have been good and head out do the pub for a beer but same scenario.